House Republicans are calling for the U.S. immigration system to undergo new scrutiny after an attack by an Afghan refugee left one National Guard member dead and another fighting for his life.
“I’ve thought that for a long time. I wish we would have done that back in 2018. I wish we would have done it actually 2016, 2018, 2020,” House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., said Tuesday when asked if Congress should reexamine U.S. immigration policies.
Several GOP lawmakers who spoke with Fox News Digital homed in on the migrants and refugees allowed into the country during the Biden administration, of which the attack suspect had been a part. The alleged shooter came to the U.S. in 2021 under “Operation Allies Welcome” after the military’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“What we need to revisit is … who we’re going to allow in and who we need to be getting out of our country. When the Biden administration made the decisions that it did after the debacle in Afghanistan, it has created potentially a catastrophe in our country,” Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyo., said.
Rep. Randy Fine, R-Fla., took a hard-line stance on both legal and illegal immigration when asked about the U.S. system.
“First off, there’s all the illegals, but even in legal immigration, we’ve allowed people who hate this country to become legal, become citizens, become visitors. We need to send them all home,” Fine said.
Reps. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., and Austin Scott, R-Ga., both expressed support for immigration in cases that expressly benefited the U.S. but called for more nuanced reform.
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“We’ve been needing reform drastically for decades. One size does not fit all. We should have an immigration system that’s tailor-made for America per year. Some years you need more people in construction, IT, healthcare, agriculture, and some years we need less,” McCormick said.
“And it needs to be a flexible program, not a rigid one that’s based on an antiquated system where we couldn’t use AI to adapt, where we can’t use a process that’s designed by the government to be efficient for the people.”
Scott said legal immigration was an “asset” to the country, but only in cases where people were ready to assimilate to American culture.
“I’m all for legal immigration that admits people that share our interests and our values. We should not allow people that do not share our interests or our values. And the idea that simply because somebody comes to America, that they’re going to change and share our interests and our values, is ridiculous,” Scott said.
“If someone is acting one way in another country, and you bring that person to the United States of America, we should not expect them to change their ways any more than you would expect a criminal in one state to change their ways if they move to another state.”
The Trump administration has also promised action in the wake of the shooting, temporarily pausing all immigration from 19 countries deemed areas of concern to the U.S.
“This heinous atrocity reminds us that we have no greater national security priority than ensuring that we have full control over the people that enter and remain in our country,” President Donald Trump said in comments on Thanksgiving, just after the shooting.
